On A Successful Fringe Season

My drama group, The Edinburgh Grads have had a successful Fringe. I say my drama group. I’m the Treasurer.

We put on two shows at the Royal Scots club. In previous years we’ve put on one show. So we’ve doubled the amount of Fringe theatre we put on.  This summer we produced Doctor Faustus, Kit Marlowe’s version of the tale of a  man who sells his soul to the devil, and a modern play by Paul Higgins, Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, about a badly damaged Central Belt family.

The Royal Scots is a new venue for us. It has a nice hall with a small stage. The venue seats about 70, which is a good size for us I think. We sold out Doctor F most nights. A larger venue would have meant more ticket sales but on the other hand the audience for Nobody was a bit small on the first couple of nights and it’s nice not to have a small audience sitting a huge, empty space.  It’s about the risk for me. We could have paid for a bigger venue and sold more tickets for Doctor F but lost money paying for a bigger venue.

Both shows have made money. We’re an amateur group so it’s not vital that all our shows make money. However, we do have overheads to cover and we need to make a profit on some shows. Looks like we’ve made a decent amount of money overall, with good audiences. It’s actually pretty hard to make money putting on a show in the Edinburgh Fringe. (I’m planning a detailed post on the economics of the Fringe soon.) So, it’s really, really good to have made a substantial profit on the season.

Nobody Will Ever Forgive us won an award, The Capital Spirit Award from the Edinburgh Evening News. Which is nice. Both shows seem to have pleased their audiences. Both picked up some decent notices from the critics.

What I’m most pleased about it is that Doctor F made the most money, but Nobody won a prize. Nicely balanced rewards for both the directors and the both the casts.

Our next show is Richard III, which starts rehearsing on Sunday and opens later in the autumn.